Industrial Sector

Industry deals with the transformation of raw materials into a more processed form. The processing involves several stages which are meant to give more value to the raw material and prevent it from going bad. The value added and the processing makes the industry. For instance, the transformation of cassava into or starch goes through some stages before it comes out as starch and the starch has more value as compared to the cassava in its raw form. Further, an excess cassava which would have gone waste has been preserved and processed.

The Industrial Sector of the country is relatively small and mainly government owned. It is in this light that the President of the country initiated the President’s Special Initiative to expand the industrial sector to employ some of the unemployed and promote private sector investment. Again, most of the firms in the industrial sector of the nation are not engaged in exports. Considerably, the industrial sector in the Akuapem North Municipal is not different from that of the country as its size is basically small. A detail look at the industrial sector of the district is given in the report.

Type of Industry

A look at the exiting industrial types was also done. The industrial sector  cannot be talked about without looking at the forms of industrial activities engaged in by the people. A critical observation of the industrial sector of the manufacturing industry is the one which employs most of the people engaged in that sector employing over 50%. It involves carpentry, bakery, pottery and blacksmithing. The agro-industry includes oil palm production, rice mill, com mill, floor mill,mushroom cultivation, beekeeping and carbolic soap production.

Size of Industry

The sizes of the industries in the Municipality are small. This is no different from what exists nationally that is most industries in the country are operated on small scale level. The number of people employed in the industrial sector range from one to nine. From the survey it came out that all the industries are small scale firms and are mostly sole proprietorship ventures. The sole proprietors do not mostly have enough funds for expansion to increase their size to larger ones. The size of industries determines their output and contribution to the economy. As was observed in the structure of the economy it could be concluded that, the industrial sector’s contribution to employment is very low.

Source of Finance

Capital is the basic requirement for expansion. It is therefore essential to look at the source of capital available to the industrialist. With this knowledge, it can be drawn as to whether expansion can take place or not. It could be deduced  that, personal source of finance for the industrialists is the most dominant source in the industrial sector accounting for about 59.4%. This further accounts for the small size of industries since the amount that is generated personally cannot be compare to that generated from a bank.

Income Levels

For the industrial sector, the income levels were also considered. The income levels bring to bear an understanding of the levels of income among the people engaged in that particular sector of production. By the analysis of the income levels, the average income per sector is deducted to know every sector’s contribution to the economy. Based on this, the moving sector of the economy could be known.

The proportion of the work force industry who earns incomes above 700,000 is 27.1%. Approximately, 43.1% of the people engaged in the industrial sector earn income below 0100,000. The average monthly income is 0493,000. from a comparative analysis of the size of the existing industries with the average monthly income one could observed that, the industrial sector is lucrative since its size is small but its income is good compared to that of the agricultural sector.

Development Problems of the Industrial  Sector

Development problems are inevitable in man’s life. There are some existing developments problems in the industrial sector. They include the following critical development issues.

Inadequate credit facilities

Industry is a sector that involves much capital especially in the purchasing of modern machinery. There is high cost of credit and the question of colaterals demanded by the bank has always been a problem. Inferences from the survey indicate that of those who have access to credit facilities do largely lack strong collateral base to enable them get long term loans from the financial institutions. This has implications for the fast track industrial development.

Lack of skills

For one to be employed in this sector involves attaining requisite skills. Illiteracy as one of the pertinent problems contributes to the problem. The small scale nature of the sector makes it difficult to admit more of the youth to train them to attain the requisite skills to be employed in the sector.
 
The use of inappropriate tools

The use of rudimentary tools in the sector makes it difficult to increase production. A typical example is the use of rudimentary tools in carpentry like plains, saw machines and drills which makes them unable to manufacture more at a faster rate. Most of the processing is the artisanal type using very rudimentary technology. The technology has remained rudimentary because the trade has been dominated by mostly illiterate resource-poor who traditional are responsible for the preservation.